Will Cooke be Traded or Signed?

As much as I like Cooke, the time to trade him is now. He has peaked as far as his career will go, and we will get the most in return for him. If not a solid D-man, how about a Backup other then Auld, or a comparable player. I think Nonis will have an easy job offloading him, and it would be a shame to lose him for absolutely nothing.

cooke said so himself that he thinks 1.5 per year is fair. i dont' know what morris is thinking. 2.5 can give us a 'real' 2nd line scoring threat (carter is unproven at this point, although the signing is nice).

but i voted that cooke would get signed for below 2, and morris would be the laughingstock.

stinkycookie116 wrote:but i voted that cooke would get signed for below 2, and morris would be the laughingstock.

Nonis would be the laughingstock if he signed him for anything more then $1.25 mill.
As much as I like Cooke, he isn't worth any more then that. I really think if he is demanding more then that he should be traded instantly. He just isn't that good. Not with the new CBA. I might have considered him worth up to $1.75 mill last year, but not now. Not with the Salary Cap.

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Compared Cookes salary to linden's, saying if it was 1.520 million he would be signed already[/quote]

He's picking his spots here. Just because Linden is overpaid doesn't mean that Cooke should be. That is old CBA logic.." That guys is overpaid so my guy should be too." Ahh those were the days for agents. He should sign for 1.2 or so because i doubt he wants Linden money next year when it is under a mil. for sure. Nonis should sign Cliffer, one of the unsung leaders of 94 and still up for scoring 20 goals.

mindbender wrote:This deal has to be about the term (length) of the contract. I just can't see how Cooke could turn down 1.2 Mil.

Agreed. If you look at tCL's salary chart , it's clear that Nonis is trying to keep the core together for another 2-3 years. I think the Canucks see Cooke as part of the core, and would like to lock up Cooke for 3 years for under $1.5M per. Because the salaries are averaged over the term contract towards the salary cap, Morris feels that Cooke will be worth a lot more than $1.5M a couple years from now. Cooke's probably worth $5 M over 3 years, but Nonis doesn't have the cap room this year for $1.67.

Cooke really doesn't want to be traded, but Morris knows that Cooke is popular, so he's going the public route to try and get Cooke as much $ as possible. In the end, I predict a compromise and I think he'll be signed around $1.3M-$1.4M per for 2 years.

Rutuu will be signed for cheap. If Nonis is intent on going with 21 players, he'll easily have enough cap space to pull this off. If he goes with 22 players, it will be tight but doable.

Nonis has said if the Cooke camp wanted $1.25 mil they would be talking deal. $1.5 is too much. Sorry but it is. It's too much for Linden but Linden has so many more accomplishments in his career than Matt Cooke and still contributes at the same level (perhaps higher given he's often a go to faceoff man) for Cooke's agent to even mention that salary. If you look around the league at similar players it's very clear to me Cooke is in the $1 mil range and no more.

Guys like Maltby aren't comparable as they are UFA status guys who received UFA contracts....if anything maltby is significantly higher than what Cooke can expect to get. And he only gets $1.44. Tucker with a few 20 goal seasons and a 59 point season makes $1.6 mil. Fisher makes $1.5 mil and quite frankly I think Fisher is the better player and overpaid. If you look at the other pests in the league you see a 600k to $1.2 mil typ erange. I agree with nonis if they were talking $1.2 mil they are talking deal.

The entire filled in for Bertuzzi thing is a red herring. yeah he did, but only because the cauncks are so weak on the wing and in the grit department. Like it or not while Cooke did a good job on that line for a limited time he is not a top two line player over an 82 game schedule. Which is why Carter was signed.

Cooke is overvaluing himself. And really I think what Cooke is doing is trying to force a trade to a team weak on the top two wings. Yeah he's probably pissed off Carter was signed but if MOrris and Cooke seriously think Cooke can compete for that second line spot they'd be all over getting a deal done (even a 1 year) and getting to camp. But quite frankly they know Cooke has no hope in achieving a second line spot on this team. With Carter in the picture Cooke just isn't good enough plain and simple. And that's because he is a third liner.

Some other interesting things I believe that have come from morris' mouth (from another board):

Nonis has said to me that Cooke wants backpay, and he's not getting it, and I've relented on that issue.....so nonis was correct in that they were trying to extract backpay for a deal Cooke happily (but stupidly) signed. That is a a pretty scummy thing to do IMO. And it also very much suggests that atleast last week the Cooke camp was asking for the moon.

Can't say if he'll be signed by camp....we all know what happens to players who miss camp. They remain a step behind everyone for a couple of months. He can sit if he likes. His bargaining position gets weaker by the day when he does. If he isn't signed by training camp I say to Nonis "let him sit". Sign or acquire someone (or two someones) with that money.

Want 2-4 year contract, won't sign a one-year....and that's the problem. He wants to be paid as a second liner despite playing a grand total of 20 games or so on the top two lines and not being good enough to crack the second line IMO. And on top of that he wants to be paid as a second liner for multiple years. Sorry but if that is the case he can sit.

I like Cooke but until he realises he is nothing more than a good third liner you let him sit. And the end result is unless Cooke's agent pulls his head out of his ass he will sit, but I truly think they are trying to force a trade here. This is the second time he has mentioned other teams being interested (note not interested enough to offer him a contract).

Quite frankly this player/agent combination is acting exactly like the reason why most people were not on the players side in the CBA battle.

Well, if Cooke leaves it's really not the end of the world. If he gets more than $1 million it's too much for what he brings, if he gets up to $1.2 million I wouldn't be upset.

Any more than that, for multiple years, makes no sense. If Cooke wants $1.5 million or so then trade him to somebody else, no use in overpaying a player to stay in Vancouver.

I met Matt Cooke once, playing pickup hockey in Belleville. He might be the dumbest guy I've ever met, and he's showing it here. He's not worth what his agent is saying he is worth.

Let him go to Florida, Atlanta, Washington or whoever else has cap room. He can go there, play on the top 2 lines on a team going nowhere and be happy. If he wants to win in Vancouver, he should realize that he's a 3rd line player on a good team and be happy with that.

as much as i agree he is being a complete moron at the moment shouldnt he get some sort of promotion from being able to step into that first line roll? im not saying put him on the first line, or give him the 2.5 mill....but what else can you give him? a slap on the back? thats pretty much all hes got...

Cooke clearly has aspirations to be more than a 3rd liner but the Sedins are getting the 2nd-line ice time (and Nonis will continue to push for that if he wants them to be happy enough to re-sign with Vancouver next summer ... because the twins will definitely be looking to move to another team if they are demoted to 3rd liners here this season).

If Cooke is paid less than the 1.2 the Sedins get, this fits with his 3rd line status ... but if he gets more than the Sedin's 1.2, then this logically indicates that he is more valuable than the twins and warrants more ice time ... perhaps the solution is to give him the same contract as the twins (which he'd probably take once he holds out for awhile and starts thinking about Peter Schaefer's year in Turku when that guy tried the same gambit with Burkie).

Cooke WAS getting more ice time than either Sedin last season. Essentially, Crawford gave the same amount of PT to the second and third lines. Daniel Sedin had the second highest points per minute rating on the Canucks last season. Watch the Sedins get more ice time this year, and significantly up their point totals.

feritflame wrote:..but what else can you give him? a slap on the back? thats pretty much all hes got...

Well you give him raise that puts him among the top third liners in the league that haven't reached UFA status yet. And that's what Nonis is willing to give him from everything I've seen. You do not pay as if he is a second liner just because he had 15 games on the top two lines and performed well, because when it comes right down to it asll Cooke did on the top two lines was do his job. He was asked to fill in on the wing when an injury (well suspension) occurred. That is his role as a third line winger...play third line ans step into the top two lines when called upon. He performed it well but that doesn't make him a second liner deserving of the money it seems he wants. It just makes him a good third liner and that should get the guy about $1 mil....or traded.

Does anyone know how incentives/bonus' are dealt with under the new CBA? If a guy makes his bonuses and it puts a team over the cap is the team fined or does the overage get allocated against next years cap? I know I read somewhere that either Allison or Lindros had the potential to make 4.5 mil tthis year if they hit their bonuses, but both are listed as 1.5 mil against the cap. Anyone know if some of the contracts with Sedins, Ohlund, Carter, etc. contain a significant component of incentive based pay, or are they all just salary. Seems to me we could sweeten Cookes contract with some incentives. 1mil-1.2m base with bonuses, ensures Cooke plays hard even if he is disgruntled and ensures we don't overpay.

magnum44 wrote:Does anyone know how incentives/bonus' are dealt with under the new CBA? If a guy makes his bonuses and it puts a team over the cap is the team fined or does the overage get allocated against next years cap? I know I read somewhere that either Allison or Lindros had the potential to make 4.5 mil tthis year if they hit their bonuses, but both are listed as 1.5 mil against the cap. Anyone know if some of the contracts with Sedins, Ohlund, Carter, etc. contain a significant component of incentive based pay, or are they all just salary. Seems to me we could sweeten Cookes contract with some incentives. 1mil-1.2m base with bonuses, ensures Cooke plays hard even if he is disgruntled and ensures we don't overpay.

Only players who were injured for more than half the previous season (in calendar days) and rookie contracts have bonuses. No other contracts can have bonuses.

Players who earn major awards will be given a bonus paid out directly by the league.

For those contracts that have bonuses the team can either leave room under the current seasons cap in case those bonuses are met. Or they can spend to the cap ignoring bonuses and if players hit the bonuses and the team goes over the cap the amount they go over the cap is applied to the next seasons cap.